"Singing through his fingers" perfectly describes Jimi Hendrix when he said "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice" and a great example is the song called Power to Love. Hendrix recorded four different versions of that song at the Fillmore East on New Year's Eve/Day in 1970. The so-called third version is the best one and appeared on the LP Band Of Gypsys, recorded for Capitol Records to fulfill an old contract Hendrix had neglected. The third version is the only one where after a brief 20 second intro, Hendrix launches into a one minute solo flight before the main body of the song begins. Listen to at least the first minute and a half:

President Obama will not insist on a United Nations resolution threatening the use of force against Syria if Damascus does not turn over its stockpile of chemical weapons, according to reports.

The White House telegraphed the president’s strategy Friday amid ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Russia over a proposal to disarm Syria strongman Bashar Assad’s chemical arsenal to avert a threatened American military strike.

According to the reports from the Associated Press and New York Times, Obama is not ruling out a military strike. The president though believes that any resolution including such language would be vetoed by Russia on the Security Council. The president will reserve the right to strike Assad without UN support if Syria fails to follow through and hand over its chemical weapons.

Administration officials would not directly confirm the reports to the Washington Examiner.

Want to hear a man wail? I mean, really wail? Without Autotune. I do not know who this man is, Josh Weathers, covers a song from The Bodyguard. He talks about it first, and gets started singing at 1:27 and apparently women swoon over his speaking voice too, judging by remarks left on YouTube. I think Josh has a slug before stepping out on stage.

It's weird when I see people wearing shirts of the exact same textile pattern I owned decades ago like the pattern is recycled commercially. This happened a couple of times like this green red and white Stewart dress tartan, it sticks out because of so much white.

"This is not a sexual service! Or a host club. Japanese website NariNari explains that you are renting an ossan to do things like, for example, going to art galleries, having lunch and talking about your love life, test driving cars with you, renting weepy DVDs, looking at new apartments together, complimenting you, and even giving you ideas."

... Ossan Rental, a middle-aged man rental service that makes older gentlemen available for only 1,000 yen (US$10) an hour.

And not just regular old dudes, but 65 year-old former Japanese pro ballplayer Mikio Sendou (who was an All-Star in 1978!) and 46 year-old "fashion producer" Takanobu Nishimoto. Currently, there are only two ossan for rent.

"Like almost everyone else in the crowd of fellow travelers and detractors who come out for and against him — sometimes both — [Brandon] Darby is more unreliable narrator than cynic. Certainly he comes across as a grandiose believer in his own propaganda, whether as the founder of the militant grass-roots aid movement Common Ground, created as a response to support survivors of Hurricane Katrina, or as the disillusioned turncoat and FBI plant who egged on, then turned in a group of young hotheads plotting to disrupt the 2008 Republican Convention in Minneapolis."

Informant - Documentary

According to a former associate, it was Darby's savior complex that moved him to rush south to aid a Katrina-imperiled friend, then stay in New Orleans to help out other survivors and found the Common Ground relief collective. And perhaps his difficulty with father figures caused him to tell a police officer who asked what he was doing in the area that "I'm trying to foment social change" — then later bond so deeply with an FBI handler that he readily sold out an amateur cell of would-be terrorists trying to rig up Molotov cocktails using tampons.

To his mostly embittered associates on the left, Darby is variously a fallen hero, an attention-seeking egomaniac and a full-on Judas. Absolutist that he is, Darby now excoriates the FBI for insufficient vigor in prosecuting child prostitution. Today he's a Tea Party darling and a passionate columnist for the website Breitbart.com.

"Young people in their late twenties who fashion
themselves as outside of the mainstream — derisively referred to as hipsters —
are a major force in New York, especially trendy neighborhoods like
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But how did they get there? Where do they all come from?"

Fortunately these questions can be answered by the U.S.
Census Bureau. Looking at their flows mapper — which measures people moving to
or from a county to any other counties — we were able to find out where people
were coming from when they moved to Brooklyn.

This map shows counties that had a significant number of
people aged 25-30 who moved to Kings County, New York, also known as Brooklyn.
These are prime candidates for hipsterdom.

So while we're not saying that all people between 25 and 30
who are moving from the rest of the country to Brooklyn are hipsters, this fits
the bill.

If you look closer, you can also see that Brooklyn is
bringing in people from Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Austin, and the
Research Triangle in North Carolina.

So next time you want to bash New York Hipsters, just
realize that it's not New York that's the cause. It's all of you.

"All wars are vicious, but the civil war in Syria seems every day to set new standards for brutality. As the fighting rages in its third year, increasing numbers of atrocities are committed by soldiers and fighters from forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad, as well as armed rebels and Islamic militants from the numerous, loosely aligned groups opposing Assad."

The violence is frequently sectarian in nature, with fighters claiming they act in defense of their faith, be it Sunni, Alawite, Shiite or any of the other sects that contribute to Syria’s religious landscape.

The perpetrators of atrocities themselves often use digital cameras or smartphones to photograph or film their acts of torture and murder, uploading the images to the Internet. These images and videos are used for propaganda, and their authenticity is often impossible to verify. It is very rare that a group of fighters from either side gives a professional photojournalist from a country outside Syria full and unfettered access to chronicle an atrocity as it unfolds.

Although this question may be impossible to answer with absolute certainty, I'm going to ask anyway. Is it possible that the increased worlds attention on Syria is causing more people to die?
And, consequently, what should we, the citizens of the United States be doing to stop it?

Flashback on the world stage to the moment when Vladimir Putin first appeared to us and William Safire memorably quipped: "Putin: Rhymes with Rasputin."

Put your way back machine on to 2000 and reread Safire's NYT article; it's well worth it -- from a time when I still read that paper religiously. I picked out a few excerpts:

Acting President Putin (pronounced POO-teen, rhymes with Ras-POO-teen) rocketed to popularity on Russian jubilation about the massacre of dark-skinned Chechens who dare to demand independence. He needed a snap election before the blood lust cooled and Russian body bags began returning home.

Was Safire pro-Chechen or just sympathetic? The question is clouded by the Brothers Tsarnaev who were Chechens; remember what they did here: atrocities to bring attention to…? Well, not exactly to bring attention to al-Qaeda...but what then?

It is the Chechens who seek to liberate themselves from Russian rule. The Russian militarists are the ones raining bombs and shells on people who want the same independence as Georgians and Ukrainians. For Clinton to characterize the rape of Grozny as ''liberation'' is an abomination.

Al-Qaeda first appeared on our radar in Afghanistan. But they did fight the Russians (Soviets) before us. It's all so confusing. And Bill Clinton, siding with Putin's take on Chechnya? What will Hillary say and do?

Their task, after last week's coup de main, is to present Putin (means ''born on the road'') to the electorate as a man on horseback out to crush the terrorists trying to tear Mother Russia asunder.

I would have never guessed that. Safire was very good at etymology; I didn't know he covered Russian etymology too.

Putin is in a race with disillusionment -- that moment when Russians realize that the Chechens won't be beaten without heavy losses, that the flight of capital will continue under Chubais-Berezovsky, and that military spending robs Russia of its ability to compete.

Can I recast that?:

Obama is in a race with disillusionment -- that moment when Americans realize that al-Qaeda won't be beaten without heavy losses, that the flight of capital will continue under Cloward-Piven, and that military spending robs America of its ability to compete.

Late Wednesday night, Gen. Salim Idriss of the anti-Assad Syrian National Coalition delivered a speech (linked below the picture) stating that the SNC rejects the turnover of control of poisonous gas. Flanked by his fellow rebel commanders he announced their:

definitive rejection of the Russian initiative to place chemical weapons under international custody.

We ask that the international community not be content with withdrawing chemical weapons, which are a criminal instrument, but to hold the perpetrator accountable and prosecute him at the International Criminal Court.

Removing the criminal tools is one matter and holding the criminal accountable is another.

Idriss also repeated his call for the US and other "friendly" nations to send arms to the Syrian rebels. On Thursday, the day of the meeting between John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:

Syria [said] it became a full member of the convention banning the use of chemical weapons [Chemical Weapons Convention] as of Thursday but...U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said "Syria will become a member 30 days after its instrument of accession is deposited." He said the documentation is still being studied.

Neuromancer, released in 1984, is an early example of the cyberpunk genre. In fact, its author, William Gibson coined the term cyberspace. It contains the perfect opening line, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

The story revolves around Case, a cyberhacker who has run afoul of his employers by keeping a little extra money from a job. In retaliation, he was not killed, but given a mycotoxin that damaged his nervous system, rendering him unable to directly access the Matrix via his brain. Desperately depressed, he becomes addicted to amphetamines, then suicidal, taking bigger and bigger risks in dystopic Chiba City.

What better thing for a suicidal cyberhacker than to be tapped for a dangerous mission? With the promise of having his nervous system restored to normal, he joins a motley crew in order to carry out the plans of the rogue corporate computer, Wintermute. From stealing the ROM construct of a dead hacker, to collecting the sociopathic final member of the group, to the job itself, the plot runs along briskly, with interesting, well-developed characters. It is beautifully written, evoking a complex future filled with the detritus of the past.

I have listened to the audio version twice, and the narrator Robertson Dean, has an excellent range of voice characterizations. I highly recommend him.

According to Wiki, there have been a couple failed attempts to make Neuromancer into film, but "[i]n August, 2012, GFM Films announced that it had begun casting for the film (with offers made to Liam Neeson and Mark Wahlberg), but no cast members have been confirmed yet."

And this brings me to my question for those who have read the book. Who would you cast?

SecState Kerry is in Geneva today to discuss the Russian suggestion that Syria voluntarily give up her stores of poison gas, rather than be plied with incendiary devices by the US. Assad asserts that his compliance is because of Russia, and not US threats:

"Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The U.S. threats did not influence the decision," Interfax quoted him as telling Russia's state-run Rossiya-24 television channel.

A version of the Russian plan that leaked to the newspaper Kommersant described four stages:Syria would join the world body that enforces a chemical weapons ban, declare production and storage sites, invite inspectors, and then decide with the inspectors how and by whom stockpiles would be destroyed.

There’s a reason why this YouTube clip went viral. Fenton the dog chases a herd of deer to hilarious consequences (with strong language). Dog owners around the world can empathize with the sheer awkwardness of the situation.

While we laugh at Fenton and the various re-makes and parodies of the clip, there are times when your dog just won’t listen to you despite your desperation, shouting, and all the training in the world. In these moments, wouldn’t it be great if they had a pause button? Well, dear reader, they may well do quite soon.

Scientists at Auburn University have published a paper in the International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control that claims to have come up with a novel piece of technology that would empower you “to command your dog with a remote control, or even via your smart phone.” Heal, sit, and roll over at the touch of a button? We truly live in an age of electronic excess.

Once upon a time there was Wag the dog, now comes Tivo the dog. No, no, not that Tivo.
I'm talking about a Tivoed dog, with Google glass strapped on, so that not only will you be able to walk the dog remotely, you will be able to also shedule the walk.

OTOH, there is the organic excess, poop detail matter, that still needs to be handled manually, boots on the ground, out on the field.

The Vatican’s new secretary of state has said that priestly celibacy is not church dogma and therefore open to discussion, marking a significant change in approach towards one of the thorniest issues facing the Roman Catholic Church.

"Celibacy is not an institution but look, it is also true that you can discuss (it) because as you say this is not a dogma, a dogma of the church," Archbishop Pietro Parolin said in response to a question during an interview with Venezuelan newspaper El Universal.

He added that while it was not dogma, clerical celibacy was a deeply entrenched Catholic tradition.

"The efforts that the church made to keep ecclesiastical celibacy, to impose ecclesiastical celibacy, have to be taken into consideration," Parolin said. "One cannot say simply that this belongs in the past."

Have you ever been encouraged to lose or gain weight in
order to get a modeling job?

"When I was meeting with agencies hoping to be signed,
the plus industry was very fresh; I honestly had no idea it was an option. As a
result of that lack of info, I ended up seeing agencies who did not represent
curvy girls. I was asked to lose 15 pounds. I was 14 years old at the time and
hungry for a contract but knew that way of getting it was just not for me. I
declined and was signed as a plus model that afternoon."

Fluvia Lacerda

How did you get into modeling?

"I used to work as a nanny in NYC, and one day, while
on a cross-town bus, I was stopped by a magazine editor, and she asked me if I
had ever considered the idea of becoming a plus-size model. She gave me her
card and told me briefly about agencies that had the divisions that worked with
plus-size models and encouraged me to go visit them."

RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders.

It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Normally, I wouldn't be going over one of the bosses head to talk to his people directly like this, but, your president is busy working on his golf swing, or something. I got no choice here. He wont give me a sit down.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

There is a right way of doing it and there is a wrong way of doing it. Obama's idea of unilaterally taking out Syria is universally rejected as a bad idea. I talked to all the bosses, in private, they told me they don't want anything to do with it. They are paying lip service to Obama out of respect for me. In the end, Obama is probably going to cost me money.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

I don't know much about guitarists, and who is better than whom, but I find it amazing that according to wiki, Jack White is rated by Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" at number 70. Who are the greatest of the greats?

Is it natural? Is it comfortable for you? Would you be caught doing it in public? Some of us touch our faces with our hands, often without thinking, but that pose indicates more than scratching an itch. And there are numerous different photos of the President doing this at various points of his career. I don't think they were all photoshopped. Some of them were caught on video too.

WTH is up with it?

P.S. The middle finger gesture is not racial in any way. It reminds me more of something Bill Ayers would do. Or a man schooled far far away by a woman named Stanley.

In the previous thread, I noticed many of you didn't offer arguments in the way of help to our president. Who, many say has box himself into a corner and it now appears that our adversaries, Russia and China are poised to take advantage of his apparent ineptitude. Despite how he got where he finds himself, however, I want to remind you, Obama still our president.

Now, I know what you might think or say.
Lem, how can you ask us to help Obama when we are squarely opposed to him politically?

This is what I ask. Lets put aside our political differences and come together in the spirit of lending, giving our president some of our wisdom, if not experience, working/managing ourselves out of tight corners.

Let's go back and see where Obama has performed up to his presidential prerogatives and see if a concrete connection can be made, where it would help our president find his way out the "muddle" he put himself in. Lets help president Obama find "his own words".

At 9 p.m. Tuesday, President Obama, in his address to the nation, said that he had “asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force.”

This contradicted what his secretary of state, John Kerry, had said in testimony to Congress just 11 hours earlier. “We’re not asking Congress not to vote,” Kerry told the House Armed Services Committee. “I’m not asking [for] delay,” he added later.

John Morse, Angela Giron, victims of right-wing extremism, NRA activities, Koch Brothers sinister influence. It is no mystery why the Bloomberg sums were insufficient against the tide of gun nut™ activism, but it is still not clear the degree of corruption exerted to turn the results of elections so clearly against the will of the people. It is a sad sign that our delicate democracy is failing.

Psych.

I heard one thing weeks ago and stopped listening because that one thing told me everything I needed to form an opinion and it makes me insane, I heard John Mose say in apparent earnestness and not with apparent sophistry, referring to the cinema murders in Colorado and obliquely to Columbine, defending his vote he said forcefully, "Not doing anything is not an option."

"Thud."

That was supposed to go "ding," and I thought in that moment, "I hope you lose."

Here are some pictures of yesterdays "Exempt America Rally" by Tea Party Patriots, held at the steps of the nations capitol, Washington DC.

On our way from the Union Station to the capitol grounds, we ran into former congressman Allen West. He said he was coming from a Heritage Foundation talk. He was very gracious, although his liaison, in the background, was visibly displeased that he was taking the time to talk to us and pose for pictures.

Former congressman Allen West

Once we were on the grounds, listening to the speakers, the pleased noise of recognition, coming from behind us, got our attention, we turned around and saw Senator Rand Paul coming through, approaching the check point for the speakers, shaking hands along the way. My phone battery had died by then, but my iPod's battery, still lived. By the time I turned the iPod on, however, Rand Paul had passed by. I did manage to tap him on the shoulder while telling him he was "my guy". I just said what came to my head. It occurred to me that I would catch him on his way back out. That plan fell through however, when Rand left the gathering from the opposite side from once he came. I saw the wisdom in that strategery. Rand Paul got to see more people up close that way.

Not far behind Rand Paul, along came Ted Cruz, with a bigger entourage, a camera crew with strapped leather heavy looking bags of equipment, with an overhead microphone shielded from the elements by an overgrown feline like thick coat of fibers. Ted is either running for something bigger and higher or is taking the air out of a robust campaign warchest. Unlike Rand Paul, Ted Cruz came in and out of the gathering via the same check point. Not too swift.

Congressman Ted Cruz

Oh, did I tell you Captain America was at the rally?

Captain America

We also had one of the founding fathers on hand. I didn't get his name. Maybe you recognize him.

Regarding the president's speech -- he did one of those? -- I read on Instapundit, but read no further than this, that it appeared to the author the work Kerry had done wasn't worth it. "Speaking of 'paralyzed,' I don't think the work he had done was a good idea.

I didn't read I didn't look. I don't need to. Maybe later.

Then on HotAir they chose this photo to say something else I didn't read. They usually choose interesting photos there, then hang onto the same photo sometimes for weeks. Didn't read, didn't want' to. I'm not bragging about my own ignorance, I'm saying it will come to me soon enough and more than I care for and then for my own purposes I'll be analyzing things Kerry said on a subject that should have never come up in the manner it has so I'll be energizing something I'd rather avoid.

And that's very unBuddhist of me.

Ooooooouuuuuuummmmmmmm bling bling.

I disagree.

It is a good idea. The work he had done. Maybe he's wooden in the video, not in the photo HotAir chose.

What he paid $1,000.00 for, that haircut, that expensive I'm guessing because it suits his sense of himself, I could do for $10.00.

I betchya.

I never did it, but I bet I could. I trimmed my dog and she turned out great. And she's a sheepdog. All three were. Scissors. I cut my dog's hair for Summer the way my barber cuts mine, by grabbing hair between my fingers and snipping, then parallel snips until the entire surface is snipped. Then do that again with the fingers going parallel at an angle to form a grid of carefully snipped hair.

It takes a week.

Because dogs have short attention spans even for deep personal attention like that, short, so they must play and the sessions broken up.

I'd do that with Kerry. He could play between sessions.

* Excellent haircut. Although I believe I can do better. The bit at the ears, I could deal with that and provide a tight trimmed look and still capture that tossed and tumbled athletic essence of undiminished youth so important to the client. I'd trim the nape.

* His skin is obviously elastic, not paralyzed. Although if it takes his fingers to move his face like mine does then I take it all back. The lines on his forehead indicate the Botox treatments wore off, never occurred, or piled wrinkles overtook them, either way his forehead is elastic and so are his cheeks.

* Ears neatly trimmed. And not just the inside where the hair comes out of the hearing canal, but the whole earlobe is trimmed.

* Eyebrows neatly trimmed. Without being overly trimmed so that he looks like a woman. He has this perfect.

* Nose hair trimmed completely. This is especially important speaking French. A Diplomat certainly does not want to be seen blowing buggers when slipping into les nàzel aćçents.

Splendid imagery and superb Diplomatic presence and representative for the United States. This is the stuff of history. And exciting too, observing a new international paradigm where the liberal president of the United States embraced by liberal Western governments worldwide, their populations, the Nation, presumes to speak for the International community, and turns out he does.

The whole world scrambles to cover for the remarks made by the man. I read in four separate places that high ranking military planners complained about drawing up plans for strikes updating them some 50 times. I'm always suspicious of decimals. But the point is, a lot of planning and re-planning due to the carelessness, uncertainty, lack of real leadership, and decision.

That is what happens, one of the things that happens, when "do my homework" is elevated to the pinnacle, truly the pinnacle of American political life, many would say the world's pinnacle, Peter Principle fashion. Fifty times, that fecklessness looks like this:

I counted fifty. Whatever the real number, they're still planning. Come to think of it, that's their job. Just do your jobs and stop bitching. What did you think the job of war planner is?

The president speaks foreign policy in axiom presuming to speak for the world and the world flies into activity demonstrating he does in fact speak for the world. Secretary of State makes an offer to show what is available and withdraws it but its out there and taken and now a global discussion has occurred and responsibility is spread to the whole world. Does it get any more brilliant than that? Moreover, and this is the icing, I hope for you to appreciate it, we have two gorgeous impeccably groomed well spoken diplomats representing us. Thank you, Democratic Party.

India's patent policies have long irked multinational drug companies. Only in 1995 2005 did India even recognize patents on new drugs. This meant that generic companies could set up shop there and churn out knock-off copies of successful drugs -- drugs which cost millions for someone else to invent -- with impunity. India is not a leader in the discovery of new drugs, however, they are fast becoming a leader in the manufacture of them, along with other BRIC nations. So far so good?

Some express outright hostility towards patent protection in general, arguing that it is essentially rent-seeking. They point out that billions of poor people deserve the fruits of the wealthy, and the human cost is too high to ignore. The problem with that stance (as I see it it) is its lack of a better model for drug discovery; everything being unequal, what is to prevent widespread piracy? Another problem aside from lack of access by the poor is the re-importation of cheaper drugs back into countries which can afford them but which increasingly refuse to pay for them. The problem will become worse before it becomes better.

This has been bugging me for a long time. This is what I'm thinking. The snake is already done. It is built on a step. A crimp in the step. An arm on the crimp. As the paper step folds, so does the crimp and to do that it must turn inward and the arm attached to the crimp turns too. There is a snake on the arm so the snake appears to move.

Two crimps in the step, so two arms that move in opposite directions, 45 degrees, and two snake coils attached that appear to move eerily similar to an actual snake, together a full 90 degrees, impressive in pop-uppery.

Disguised and covered it is a bit freaky.

But now I think that can be extended one step upon another lengthening sideways rather than up and down as steps do, steps that do not behave as steps but as a ladder sitting on the ground.

I made a brief video of a finished pop-up card featuring a coiled snake at the bottom of this page if you care to see how I charm the pants off my brother. The snake has arms. It needs them to pass out cupcakes, eh, why not?

Monday, September 9, 2013

Krak des Chevaliers,...also Crac des Chevaliers, is a Crusader castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by a settlement of Kurds; as a result it was known as Hisn al Akrad, meaning the "Castle of the Kurds". In 1142 it was given by Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, to the Knights Hospitaller. It remained in their possession until it fell in 1271. It became known as Crac de l'Ospital; the name Krak des Chevaliers was coined in the 19th century.

Kansas City Chiefs over...I don't know. How about the San Francisco 69ers, 31-17.

Bear in mind, I've picked the Chiefs every year since 1981....and I actually named my elder daughter Delaney, after Joe....so maybe you shouldn't take that hot tip, mortgage your house, and fly to Vegas to place that bet.

Any "Chefs" jokes in the comments will be dealt with swiftly and brutally. Hey, we're 1-0, you smug bastards. Tied for first.

On social media and the online Marathon Swimmers Forum, long-distance swimmers have been debating whether 64-year-old Nyad got a boost from the boat that was accompanying her - either by getting in it or holding onto it - during a particularly speedy stretch of her swim.

'When you know how hard it is, you kind of want those details,' said Andrew Malinak, a Seattle long-distance swimmer who crunched the data available from the GPS positions tracked on Nyad's website and concluded that he didn't trust what he saw.

Nyad's navigator and one of the swim's official observers told The Associated Press this weekend that Nyad didn't cheat and that she was aided during the rapid part of her swim by a swift current.

Something's weird about the just-released 911 audio for the latest Zimmerman event: (audio link). The beginning is heavily edited, including exactly how Shellie Zimmerman ID'd herself and her estranged husband. But it's quite clear that she needed to get that bit of notoriety out there first before even describing the scene.

Oh! This is what Lem was talking about back there about Assad and Russia making a deal that might end up having Obama come out smelling like a rose. I couldn't make sense of it, there is no rosy possibility visible.

No link, it's all over the place, Kerry offered the United States could hold off if Syria turned over its chemical stockpile to the International community.

(The International Community that exists in Kerry's mind. In Obama's own version of this IC Obama himself is mouth. But these are matters of psychology. There actually is an International Community and one concerned about chemical weapons but the presumptuousness of evoking those things as if one's office confers them as spokesperson for all is remarkable and remarkably comical at the same time akin to the movies where the teenager attacks a vampire by holding up a cross and speaks in the name of Christ.)

It's a great idea.

Truly great. And it could work. Struck with its brilliance I'm reminded again why I'm unsuited for diplomacy.

Then he withdrew it.

Why?

Timid. He did that already and was contradicted and it caused problems, and rebuffed he knows he needs approval first so he backed off from his own great idea that would work. Work to make Obama look good having made the red-line remark about calculus that caused everyone who listens to the man to fly into hyperactivity.

Man, that would be like Thomas Jefferson backing off from the Louisiana Purchase because he didn't have the authoritah of his boy king, except Thomas Jefferson probably didn't make the offer to buy all that political cover, I mean geographical territory.

"Cyberpunk manga Akira debuted in 1982—over thirty years ago. The manga, and subsequent anime, are set in 2019, against the backdrop of the forthcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics."

Er, I mean the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics. The impending games and Neo-Tokyo Olympic Stadium do factor into the plot (for example, Akira is housed in a cryogenic chamber below the stadium, and the Olympic grounds house a military base.)

The sign for the Olympic site that appears in the film reads: "147 Days Until the Tokyo Olympics." Under that, it reads, "With everyone's effort, let's make this a success." The sign says this is the 30th modern Olympic games (it will actually be a the thirty-second).

The Kotaiku post goes on to make somewhat amusing Olympics/Akira Manga related observations.

No one questions the legality of the permits. State law does not allow sheriffs to deny an Iowan the right to carry a weapon based on physical ability.

The quandary centers squarely on public safety. Advocates for the disabled and Iowa law enforcement officers disagree over whether it's a good idea for visually disabled Iowans to have weapons.

Delaware County Sheriff John LeClere said. "I'm not an expert in vision,"

"Training the visually impaired"

In one Iowa county, blind residents who want weapons would likely receive special training.

Wethington, the Cedar County sheriff, has a legally blind daughter who plans to obtain a permit to carry when she turns 21 in about two years. He demonstrated for the Register how he would train blind people who want to carry a gun.

"If sheriffs spent more time trying to keep guns out of criminals' hands and not people with disabilities, their time would be more productive," Wethington said as he and his daughter took turns practice shooting with a semi-automatic handgun on private property in rural Cedar County.

But not every odd person in the background is necessarily purposefully photobombing, there is a good chance the guy is naturally odd.

This is Erin Andrews with Fox News reporting on something sporty.

I'm fascinated.

It's not creepy and hardly odd. But still fascinating. A bit, but only a bit, in a similar way as with Justin LeBlanc, the deaf guy on Project Runway.

I noticed a post about Justin on signingsavy, one of the dictionaries that inevitably gets opened in its own tab each session I'm at the computer. Joe thought this was odd, you might too, Joe asked, so I told him, that as I'm reading I look up words I don't know in whatever language I don't know it, and signingsavy is one of some five tabs that are opened regularly for comparing in sign. Since there is so much I don't know that's a practice that slows reading considerably. I showed Joe my history that day and there were hundreds of words were looked up, that's the odd part, and that convinced Joe I'm some kind of loon. Who knows what he says about me when I'm not there to defend myself.

I happened to catch the episode just as Justin is voted off, and I thought, "Damn, I would have liked to see more of that." And Justin walked back to the other designers it was sad.

So sad.

It got me. That quickly. I could tell he is a very nice person. Too bad. Someone I would like to know, someone I know we'd hit it off. And right then Tim Gunn came back and said he has something important to say. I'm sitting there amused with Tim and his grave mien because nothing can be important, no matter how cogent Meryl Streep's argument in The Devil Wears Prada, that was funny, he continued,

"I think the judges made a mistake and I'm using my Tim Gunn Save,"

a once a season prerogative to veto the judges, that nobody seems to have heard about until this season, and he used it to save Justin LeBlank. Everybody gleed and the room filled with radiant joy.

Even me.

He got me just that fast.

Later, I noticed the show again running in the background so I snapped on the sound and now I can hear what he sounds like and the types of things that he says and I become fascinated with his two front teeth which appear to be twice as long as the neighboring teeth, like a rabbit, and I cannot. stop. staring.

Not unsightly, no, not that, and not Bucky Beaver either, although I bet he was teased as a child, more like a personal trait that make his face interesting and endearing for its imperfection, it allows his spirit to be known in the animation of his face. Were he in front of me in person I'd embarrass myself by focusing on his teeth. Actually, I'd be able to get away with it because I'd be signing and lipreading him for clues, even though he speaks fine, he'd be used to that behavior.

The opposite of the guy in the top gif whose unusualness is not animated, his supposed creepiness is in his stoic unmoving stance and his inanimate spirit not known, it must be exaggerated to be funny or to be truly creepy. I think his teeth and mouth are just that way.

It freaks me out when people smile and their upper lip is lifted above their gum so that their gums top or bottom show, because I cannot do that. I have to use my fingers to pull my lip up to expose the gums. Face exercise will not tug them higher. So that guy's mouth permanently opened to expose the incisors I suppose is a bit freaky, but that's all. It's like an open breathing portal

Sunday, September 8, 2013

For every family or single person making $30k or less per year, the IRS will file your taxes for you for free. If you go to a local branch during their specified hours, they will have their own agent look through your stuff and find basically everything you're qualified to receive. This is great for college students and anyone else who may need to catch up or has never done their taxes before. When I was able to do this, the IRS people were super friendly and worked tediously to get me everything they could think of. I also didn't see many other people there, so I guess they were glad to be doing something.

Sprint gives you a discount on your monthly phone bill if you say you're a friend/relative of an employee. All you do is enter the CEO's email address online when you sign up, since it's listed on their website.

Also New York City folk: You unfortunately need to poop in Times Square? No problem. Walk into the Mariott Marquis, and head to the fifth floor. Don't look around, don't stop, dont take the elevators (theyre not like every other elevator). Just head for the escalators and walk it. You'll find clean, quiet, and large bathrooms just ready to be defiled by your disgusting filth.

Edit: you can actually get away with quite a bit in NYC hotels as long as you look like you're supposed to be there. If everyone around you is in a suit and you're wearing a "keep calm and whatever" shirt, you'll stick out.

The interview, Assad's first with an American television network in nearly two years, will air on PBS's "Charlie Rose" show on Monday, the same day that President Obama sits down with six television networks for recorded interviews.

Dempsey’s unspoken words reflect the opinions of most serving military leaders. By no means do I profess to speak on behalf of all of our men and women in uniform. But I can justifiably share the sentiments of those inside the Pentagon and elsewhere who write the plans and develop strategies for fighting our wars.

In the 56-second clip below the image, you will see SecState Kerry ask General Dempsey, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if he would like to add anything to what he just said. Dempsey politely declines, which causes the senator sitting to Rand Paul's left to burst out laughing. From the clip, you can navigate to the entire hearing. From the hearing, you can select 'Timeline,' and then select for Dempsey in the drop down menu, and his responses will be highlighted in the mini-transcripts. You must click on the texts to make the video play. He uses very guarded language that denote, in my opinion, a reluctance to grant his imprimatur to the intervention.